The 60-Second Environment: How to Turn 1 Image into a 3D World (EasyEnv Workflow)

Every 3D artist knows the pain: You spend days creating a perfect character, but the scene looks empty. You have two bad choices: put a flat 2D image behind them (which looks fake if the camera moves) or spend hours to days modeling a background city. Today, we have a third choice.

The Solution: EasyEnv (Single-Image Splatting)

EasyEnv is a free Blender add-on that uses AI to predict the 3D depth of a single 2D photo. It turns a flat JPEG into a navigable 3D Point Cloud (Gaussian Splat). You can fly the camera into the photo, and the perspective shifts correctly.

EasyEnv 3D Environment from 2D image — Turn any 2D photograph into a navigable 3D world in seconds.

Step 1: Installation (The Heavy Lifting)

First, download the add-on from the GitHub Releases page. Install it like any other zip file in Edit > Preferences > Add-ons.

Downloading EasyEnv from GitHub — Download the latest zip release from the GitHub repo.

Once enabled, you need to click 'Install Environment'. Note: This triggers a large download (~3-10GB) of AI weights and dependencies. A terminal window will open to show progress. Let it finish.

Patience Required: The initial setup downloads PyTorch, CUDA dependencies, and AI model weights. This can take 10-30 minutes depending on your internet speed.

Terminal window installing dependencies — Don't panic when the black window opens. It's installing the AI brains (PyTorch/CUDA).

Step 2: Generating the World

Open the EasyEnv panel (Press N). Select your Device (Choose 'GPU' for speed). Then, simply open a photo of a street, forest, or room and click 'Generate PLY from Image'.

EasyEnv Panel showing GPU selection — Set Device to GPU (CUDA) for faster generation.

After about 30 seconds, you will see a point cloud appear. Switch your viewport to Material Preview or Rendered Mode to see the magic.

Initial point cloud generation in viewport — The raw Gaussian Splat data appearing in the viewport.

You can now rotate the camera. Notice how the buildings have depth? You aren't looking at a flat plane anymore — you are inside the environment.

Navigating the 3D environment — The Result: A navigable 3D street generated from a single picture.

The Pro Workflow: Mixing AI & Manual Assets

Using just the background isn't enough. Here is how to make it production-ready:

1. Foreground Objects

The Splat is great for backgrounds, but blurry up close. Use a tool like Tripo or Rodin to generate high-quality "Hero Objects" (like a car or a character) to place in the foreground.

2. The Shadow Trick

Splats don't catch shadows natively. To fix this, create a simple plane under your character. Assign a 'Shadow Catcher' material, or use a PNG decal of a shadow and parent it to your character's feet. This grounds the object in the AI world.

Final High Quality Render — Final Render: With proper foreground placement, the AI background looks indistinguishable from a modeled scene.

The Verdict: When to Use This?

Let's be honest: Manual 3D modeling is still 5x better in quality. If you are making a hero shot for a movie, model it by hand. But if you have a tight deadline, or need a background that will be out of focus (Depth of Field), this workflow is 20x Faster. It saves you days of modeling for shots where the background is just... background.

Best Use Cases: Film backgrounds, game environment prototyping, architectural visualization backgrounds, social media content with moving cameras, and any scene where the background isn't the main focus.

Download the tool and save your next deadline.

EasyEnv on GitHub